Create a multi item clipboard - with Butler
Previously, we had a first look at the great program Butler. Today we will highlight one feature that is extremely useful - a multi item clipboard.Normally, if you copy something (e.g. text) to the clipboard, its previous content is overwritten.
In case you need it again, you have to go back and copy it again from the original source again, in order to be able to access it. This can be quite a pain in the neck.
No longer with Butler.
Setup
To open up Butler’s preferences window, click the computer icon in the menu bar, select Butler > Preferences.
Alternatively, you can bring up Butler’s abbreviation window, by pressing control-space. Once the window is visible, press command - , (comma) to bring up the preferences (as you bring up the preferences in any other application).
In the preference window change over to the Configuration tab. This opens up the Inspector window - the place for everything you want to access with Butler. It uses so-called Smart Items for accessing applications and data. Let’s add a Smart Item for the Clipboard.
First, click the plus icon in the lower left corner of the configuration window.Select Smart Item > Pasteboard > Recent Pasteboards: Menu
A new item is added under the Hidden section of the items list. Click its parent folder.
On the right side of the current window you have various settings. For now, we are only interested in the middle tab - Triggers.
Let’s go through the parts of the Triggers pane.
Abbreviation
This gives you the possibility to set your own abbreviation. Let’s set it to pb. So whenever you bring up the abbreviation window (by pressing command-space), you only need to enter pb to launch this item.
Hot Key
Let’s you assign a keyboard shortcut to this particular item. Let’s assign control-V. To do so, just click inside the field and press control-V.Attention: be sure, not to use command-V, because this is the Mac OS X standard and we don’t want to mess around with this.
After you pressed the keyboard shortcut, the window expands and gives you more options. Change the option Launch all children sequentially to Opens a menu near mouse.
Doing so will present the multi item clipboard right where the mouse is.
Exceptions
gives you the option to make a shortcut work/not work only in certain applications.
Hot Corner
This works basically the same as the Screen Corner feature of Mac OS X - which we covered here - but is more powerful. However, we will leave it for now and not use it for our multi item clipboard.
Event
We could connect items to the time when Butler starts up or quits. We don’t use it for now.
Summary
So basically, all we have done now was to set the Abbreviation to pb, the Hotkey to control-V and Opens a menu near the mouse.
Multi item clipboard in real life
Try it out the multi item clipboard, open up TextEditor. You can launch it, using Butler - press command-space for the abbreviation window and start typing texteditor.
As soon as it shows up, select it and hit the return/enter key to launch it. Sounds complicated - is very straight forward and fast.
Now write and copy a bunch of text items, using the standard shortcut command-C.
To bring up the multi item clipboard, press control-C, the shortcut we assigned to it before. A window with all the clipboard items will show up. Click on an item or press the corresponding number to select one item.
Fine tuning the multi item clipboard
This multi item clipboard has more features. For example, it can store it’s content, even when Butler is turned off (read: your Mac is shut down). The multi item clipboard will be restored when you restart your Mac.
Let’s dig into it.
Open up Butler’s preferences, as described at the beginning of this post.
Go to Preferences and select Pasteboard from the list on the left side of the Preferences window.
The items speak pretty much for themselves.
Menu Item Size allows you to adjust the size of a single item of the multi item clipboard. Click anywhere in the dark gray area to adjust it.
So far, so good. Good job on hanging in there and configuring your multi item clipboard!
No more copy and overwrite, everything you cut or copied, only a keystroke away.
Did you like this post? Help to keep Mac Kindergarten up and running.
Email This Post
Tags: Butler, clipboard, freeware, keyboard, keyboard shortcut, menu bar, mouse, productivity
Related posts: